Chasing my tail or how the list never ends

Everyone has one. Everyone I know at sometime in their life creates one. Everyone who works and has some kind of responsible position should have one. Every mom has one. I have one. Make that more than one.

Yeah, I have a list. I think my list began right after college. I think my list will probably be buried beside me when I die. I just hope that my list isn’t the cause of my untimely demise.

Some years back I asked my dad if you ever get caught up in life.  Not surprisingly, but some how sadly, he said “no”. At that point I realized that life was nothing more than a list of what the next day has in store for us.

I spend the better part of my days at work using a list that reminds me of a crab. A crab, as someone once told me, takes one step forward and two steps back. I don’t know if this is true because I think they move sideways more than backwards. Anyway, my list seems to get longer each day instead of shorter and it never ends. Someone always throws another item on the list when I am not looking.

Although I hate lists they are a necessary evil that I probably couldn’t do without. As I age, my memory isn’t as good as it was in my younger days.  On second thought, maybe its not that it has gotten bad, but that there are just too many things I need to remember now. I think that our brains are like computer hard drives. There is only so much room in the short term memory to fit it all. So like I do when I use my flash drive on my computer,  I add a list to expand my brains hard drive space.

But what is it with all the things we need to do everyday. Even on my days off I can’t just sit and do nothing cause my list is always on my counter reminding me that I have stuff that needs attending to. The shame of it all is that I spend so much time doing almost nothing even though it appears that my list thinks its important. For example, going through the mail each day. How much shit do you have to receive each day to get the stuff you really need. There is so much time wasted going through all the junk mail and pulling off my personal info just to shred it. Are we really at the point in life that we need to, at some point, shred everything we acquire with our name, address and personal info on it.  Are there really that many people trying to get my info so they can scam me or are we just so fearful that this is now something we need to do each day.

And the list contains food we need to purchase, chores around the house, the Home Depot list, the gifts for the Communion we need to attend, the insurance company we need to call to ask about the mistake we find in our coverage, the cable company we call because our internet isn’t working, the sprinkler guy who turns it on and off twice a year and so on and so on…… You know the things I am talking about.

It sucks being a responsible adult. I can see why people can’t wait for retirement.  Maybe then you can sit back and relax a little. At least you can take work off the list!!!

So how do I end this madness? I can’t find the answer no matter how hard I try, but I think I know that I have to slow it down some. Life goes by so fast and even more so when your list is never ending. When you crowd so many things into a day it makes the day go by faster than it should.  Not to get to far ahead of myself but how many of the things we need to do are for or because of someone else. This is a topic in itself and one I will surely write about another time.

Just one mans opinion…….

The Regular Guy

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